College of the Liberal Arts Electronic Magazine, Issue 12

Issue 12, 4/9/03

Contents:

Two Win Guggenheim Awards

Trivia

Richard's Center Lectures

LaKeisha Baker’s Community

Glass Artist

Alumni Award Winners

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College of the Liberal Arts

Alumni Relations and Development

Study of History Indicates Iraqi War Will Last Two to Ten Months
By Paul Blaum, Penn State Public Information
Special to LAzine

   A statistical analysis of key factors in wars fought over the past nearly 200 years indicates that the Iraqi war will last two to ten months, according to Penn State political scientist D. Scott Bennett.
   “While the media have given frenzied coverage to the short-term ups and downs of the still-early war with Iraq, history would never have suggested that the war would be as short as some pundits predicted,” says Bennett, an associate professor of political science. “Rather, history reveals that half of the wars fought since 1816 have lasted more than five months, with the average length of a war being seventeen months.
   “Wars are rarely as short as the media wanted to make this war out to be in its first days,” Bennett notes. “A longer-term perspective suggests that the odds always favored a significantly more protracted war. In the absence of other stories to cover, many media outlets have chosen to portray every advance and setback as a major indicator of what the future holds. In forecasting the length of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we would do better to look back at other conflicts and compare government types, respective strengths of both sides, battlefield terrain, opposing strategies, and other variables.”
   Bennett is co-author of the forthcoming book The Behavioral Origins of War: Cumulation and Limits to Knowledge in Understanding International Conflict (University of Michigan Press), along with Dr. Allan C. Stam, associate professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College.
   Since 1994, Bennett and Stam have been using data from the long-term Correlates of War (COW) project to probe the causes of all international wars, as well as crises that ended short of war. They published their initial findings on war length in the paper, “The Duration of Interstate Wars, 1816-1985,” in the June 1996 issue of the American Political Science Review. In this article, Bennett and Stam conducted a statistical analysis of wars to determine what characteristics influence their length.
   Bennett says, “The factors included military strategies used by the two sides, the terrain on which the war was fought, the relative strength and technological sophistication of the two sides, whether one side achieved surprise, the nature of the political systems on each side, the number of combatant states (if there were more than two) and the intensity of the stakes as viewed by either side. Given that model, we can apply what we learned about the relative weight of those factors and make a forecast of the length of the current war.”
   The researchers applied similar factors from the current Operation Iraqi Feedom to their model.
   “In estimating the length of this Iraqi war, the critical feature is whether or not the United States becomes involved in major battles of attrition and significant urban warfare,” Bennett notes.
   The nature of the terrain is a critical part of any war, and has a major effect on the expected length of war. When the terrain consists of swamp, jungle or mountain—or densely populated cities—the progress of attacking forces is slow, and defenders are able to mount fierce resistance. In contrast, open terrain (desert, fields, or rolling hills) allows mobile attacking forces to move quickly, surround and isolate defending units, and to strike easily visible targets from the air.
   “If the United States were able to fight the entire war in the open desert, then our prediction of the war's length is three to four weeks,” Bennett says. “However, the coalition forces have already had to turn their attention to cities in Iraq, and indeed, Baghdad is the primary objective. In a mixed environment of open country and urban terrain, our analysis suggests that a war will last two and one-half months.
   “Although the historic average war length is seventeen months, and with half of all wars lasting over five months, the United States has a number of advantages that lead us to expect the war to be shorter,” Bennett says.
   The United States holds an enormous edge in both the size of its military forces and the technology that those forces can bring to bear. The U.S. also is focusing on using a movement or maneuver strategy to break through Iraqi lines rather than fight attrition battles everywhere.
   “As long as the coalition forces can protect their supply lines from Iraqi attack, they can bring to bear ground and air forces on selected targets in a combined arms operation that maximizes their technological and training advantages,” Bennett adds.
   To obtain the most updated report by Bennett and Stam, click here.

Two Win Guggenheim Awards

   Robert N. Proctor, Ferree Professor of the History of Science, and Matthew Restall, associate professor of Latin American history, women’s studies, and anthropology, each won competitive Guggenheim Fellowships this spring, a rare instance of two individuals in the same College and the same department winning such competitive awards at the same time. While the awards say much about the quality of Penn State’s history department today, the projects on which each man will embark indicate the breadth of study in contemporary historical scholarship.
   Proctor will travel to Kenya, Tanzania, France, and several parts of Asia this coming fall for research on his project, “The Acheulean Enigma: Handaxes and Human Origins.” The handaxe has become a near-iconic archaeological constant, having played a crucial role in the discovery of human “prehistory” circa 150 years ago. Proctor’s project will investigate how these mysterious artifacts have come to play such a central role in our imaginations of human origins, figuring also as signs for how we used to eat or talk or live in harmony or at war. Handaxes are at the center of many modern debates over how we used to be, with the additional oddity that explanations of their uses have multiplied over time. Hence the enigma: what were these artifacts used for?
   For Proctor’s purposes, the term “handaxe” requires a bit of clarification. Acheulean handaxes are palm-sized ovate tear-drop-shaped stone artifacts commonly found in Lower Paleolithic hominid sites, dating from about 1.4 million years ago down to about 200,000 years ago. Acheulean describes both the time period and the first place handaxes were unearthed, Saint-Acheul, near Amiens, France.
   But Proctor notes that handaxes have been found over most of the range of then-living hominids, basically anywhere you could get to by foot from Africa. As well, handaxes were never hafted (hence the name), which Proctor says has led some people to suggest they were thrown rather than used to chop or dig. Some sites have yielded tens of thousands in close proximity, which has left many paleoanthropologists puzzled: Why would you find so many at one site? Why are so many apparently “unused,” lacking edge-wear? And why are they so similar in different parts of the world, and over tens of thousands of generations? Why is there so little stylistic variation? How was knowledge of their use or manufacture transmitted, and if this was a “cultural” process, why is there so little variation over space or time?
   With the support of the grant, Proctor plans to explore how conjectures about handaxe function have changed over time, from the earliest references (and images) to the present. The largest part of his research will be to explore how views of Acheulean artifacts have changed in recent decades, and how political and ethical considerations have affected those views.
   “On the surface, it’s a departure of sorts for me,” Proctor concedes. His past work has considered the history of cancer research, Nazi medicine, agates, and tobacco. “But Alan Walker and Pat Shipman [both paleontologists on the faculty of the College’s bioanthropology program] have stimulated me into thinking about a range of new projects I now want to pursue.”
   A persistent interest in the political maneuvering and philosophical debates that lie behind scientific study has long characterized Proctor’s work. While the surface concerns change from time to time, Proctor says he seeks understanding about “the ‘political’ or ‘moral history of science’—how cultural values influence scientific priorities and practices.” With regards to handaxes, he is seeking to better understand the nature and function of the tools, and why it has been so hard to establish consistent interpretations of the tools. He is also interested, though, in their status as modern cultural artifacts: as objects of dispute or for sale on E-bay, with certain forms of clichéd display in museums, even the ethical limits on their transit—the “whole picture,” as he says.
   The College’s other Guggenheim winner, Matthew Restall, is also working on a vast study of interpretation, only of a more recent era. Restall has spent the last decade gathering material for his next book, The Black Middle: Slavery, Society, and African-Maya Relations in Colonial Yucatan. The Guggenheim grant will give him time to complete his research. The work, once completed, will help historians and others understand another facet of the experiences people of African descent had in the Americas.
   Restall started collecting information when he realized that the African populations on the Yucatan peninsula had never been studied before.
   “People claimed there weren’t many African slaves there, but I came across evidence suggesting that was not the case,” Restall says. “Then, I discovered that there were almost as many Africans as Spaniards at the beginning of the colonization of the peninsula. By the end of the Colonial period, there were as many people of mixed descent—Afro-Yucatecans, my own term—as there were Spaniards.”
   In short, Restall has collected evidence to illuminate 280 years of history that scholars basically had ignored. According to Restall, such a gap was not unusual. “To most historians, it’s a relatively unimportant corner of the Americas,” he says, “it’s not a colony of wealth, and current trends are not drawing people to study Africans in a remote Spanish colony.”
   But Restall’s work, he thinks, will rescue the lives of the Yucatan’s involuntary colonists from complete historical obscurity by reconstructing their lives, getting to their voices, and revealing actual documents of Afro-Yucatecans being interviewed and interrogated by colonial officials to tell their versions of life stories.
   One particular story says much about the sorts of illumination Restall’s work makes possible. Restall relates the tale of a slave who escaped from an English logging settlement in Belize, bordering on the Yucatan Peninsula. The slave had been born in Africa and was sold in Jamaica. After working in Jamaica, he was then sold to an owner in Belize. At the time he was there, he learned of a law issued by the Spanish crown which said that any slave escaping from the British to a Spanish colony would be given sanctuary. The law was part of the various political and military maneuvering which competing colonial interests used at the time against one another. However, when the man crossed into the Spanish colony, he learned quickly that the law had been rescinded some years before. The man, as well as the few others who escaped with him, was shipped off to Havanna as property of the Spanish crown.
   The story is only one of many narratives Restall has unearthed and documented. The example paints a complex picture of slave existence in the colonies in that it reveals the nationalistic rivalries at work, the laws and rumors to which many clung for hope, the passage of individuals through the colonies, and more. Over the years, while working on other projects, Restall has persisted in collecting source materials. Now, with the project’s end in sight, Restall will use Guggenheim support to tie up final connections and obtain some missing source material, traveling to the British Library in London, colonial archives in Seville, the national Mexican archives in Mexico City, and half a dozen archives in the Yucatan peninsula.

Do You Know?

If you plan to come back to campus soon, you might have the chance to see handaxes similar to the ones Robert Proctor plans to study with his Guggenheim award. To which Liberal Arts entity would you go to see such artifacts? We look forward to your answers.

In the last issue, we asked readers how many women hold the rank of Major in the Pennsylvania State Police? While Yuri Pross ’88 East Asian Studies answered first with the correct answer, it was Frank Gaus Jr. ’92 history who wrote, “Cindy Transue and Kathryn Doubt were the two that held the rank of Major. However, Cindy Transue was recently promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel with the new State Police Administration selected by Gov. Rendell.”

So, congratulations to both! Your prizes are forthcoming.

Richards Center Announces Historian, Professor of Christian Thought as 2003 Brose Lecturer

   Mark A. Noll, McManis Professor of Christian Thought and professor of history at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., will deliver three lectures as part of the 2003 Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture Series in the Era of the Civil War. The Brose Lectures will occur on April 10, 11, and 12, in Pattee Library’s Foster Auditorium. Held every spring semester, the Brose Lectures feature leading writers, historians, and intellectuals whose work focuses on the era of the American Civil War.
   Over the last decade and more, according to Noll, historians of the Civil War have begun to focus on the many ways in which religion contributed to the conflict. Noll’s lectures will try to extend that work by focusing on what America’s leading theologians wrote about the war. To put a complex situation simply, study of that writing shows the war posed a first-order theological crisis.
   Noll’s main primary sources for his first two lectures will be writings in the nation’s theological quarterlies, which were published by many denominations and especially by their leading theological seminaries. Noll says, “At a time when there were no graduate schools and when college and university faculties were small, the theological quarterlies provided some of the weightiest, most thoughtful writing in the country, not only on religious matters but on secular questions as well.”
   The three lectures will deal with distinct theological crises of the time. The first, to be delivered on Thursday, April 10, at 7 p.m., is entitled, “A Crisis Over the Interpretation of the Bible.” A problem arose when equally committed religious believers, relying with equal intensity on the written words of Scripture, came to diametrically opposed conclusions about what the teachings of Bible had to say about the national crisis. This lecture explores why that situation developed, and what the nation’s articulate theologians had to say about the era’s sharp clashes over biblical interpretation.
   A second, more general crisis arose from the theologians’ efforts to discern what God was “doing” in and through the war. Noll says, “The difficulty there was, again, that rival theologians came up with very different answers, but also that over the course of the war God himself seemed to be changing directions with great regularity.” Noll will examine both how theologians interpreted providence and why the clash of those interpretations posed fundamental problems in picturing the ways of God among humans. The lecture, entitled “A Crisis Over the Interpretation of Providence,” will occur on Friday, April 11, at 7 p.m., and afterward will feature a book signing by the speaker.
   On Saturday at 3 p.m., Noll will deliver the final lecture, “The Crisis Viewed from Outside the United States.” The talk will consider how individuals from outside the United States considered American efforts to interpret the Bible and providence. According to Noll, foreign observers (even those with close sympathies to the particular religious convictions of American writers) were baffled by the deployment of theology in America’s Civil War. The lecture will chart some of those foreign reactions and explore what they tell us about the character of American theological reflections on the war.
   Noll has twice won National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and is the author or editor of more than twenty books.
   The Steven and Janice Brose Distinguished Lecture and Book Series in the The Civil War Era Center is supported by an endowment established by the Broses in 1998, originally to support a single lecture by a distinguished visitor. The Brose’s added to the endowment in 2001, allowing a distinguished lecturer to deliver three related lectures over three days. The Brose’s generosity has enabled Penn State and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center to enter an agreement with the University of Virginia Press, which will publish the lectures as part of a series of scholarly monographs.

LaKeisha Baker’s Community

   LaKeisha Baker has such presence of mind that, while trying to describe the hectic week in front of her—the studying, her job, and the rehearsals she has to make for United Soul Ensemble—she still doesn’t miss the opportunity for a plug. “We do have a concert coming up,” she says. “April 26, like we do every year. People should come.”
   And like that, you have LaKeisha Baker. Busy, committed, a networker. And also an activist. She arrived at Penn State four years ago from Paterson, New Jersey, where she had attended Rosa Parks High School of Fine and Performing Arts, majoring in drama, where she had already earned activist stripes working in community service organizations, with at-risk youth and leadership organizations.
   The trend continued throughout her four years at University Park. Baker says that she immediately set about looking for community, and found it in an unusual place for a person double majoring in psychology and political science: MANRA, or Minorities in Agriculture and Natural Resources and Related Sciences.
   “It allowed me to continue to do the sort of community work I did at home,” Baker says. “I helped make other minority students more aware of opportunities on campus by hosting activities and workshops, helping people prepare for interviews, seeking internships, and related work.”
   That involvement put Baker in touch with many other students whose extracurricular activities centered around community building. She joined SMART (Student Minority Advising and Recruiting Team), a group that hosts high school students considering attending Penn State, to make them aware of the opportunities that exist on campus and in the surrounding area. She is also involved with Alpha Nu Omega, a Christian sorority, and with the campus chapter of the NAACP.
   Her involvement with the NAACP underscores the importance of community to Baker. At first, she worked with Black Caucus, but after some time, found she sought something different from an organization. “Black Caucus is very focused on political issues, which are important,” she says. “But the NAACP is, nationally, very community-focused, and more in line with the kind of work I like to do. When I learned that the NAACP chapter at Penn State was inactive, I worked with others to help get it going again. Now, I am a the group’s secretary, the chapter is rebuilt, and we are focused on involving students in a number of ways in addition to more political involvements.”
   On top of all her community work, choral singing, and networking, Baker has maintained a stellar academic record, twice earning the Kenneth C. and Andrea W. Frazier Scholarship in the College of the Liberal Arts as well as the Hugh and Lynn J. Arnelle Scholarship for two summers. Her goal is law school, either working domestic law or entertainment law. “I love music, I love the negotiation of contracts, and I would really like to work with artists,” she says. “But I’m waiting for a bit more guidance before I decide.”
   After helping to provide guidance for so many of her peers at Penn State, in her home town, and in her various activities, to admit to the need for guidance reveals a humble person. Although her record of accomplishment at Penn State in only four years gives her a good deal to boast about, she does not. Instead, she looks to the summer ahead, already planning to record a gospel demo and work as a paralegal, and she looks forward to learning what it’s like to work in a law firm. Like she has done for years, she will focus on her work.

Richard Smukler, Glass Artist

   Richard Smukler didn’t start out his professional career transforming glass into art. In fact, after he graduated from Penn State in 1967 with a degree in English, he attended Villanova Law School, later becoming the Special Assistant Attorney General for the state of Pennsylvania. Eventually, he even opened his own firm where he practiced personal injury law. But after several years, Smukler realized something was missing. All along, he’d been nurturing his artistic side, but his job didn’t allow him to spend the time he wanted on his craft. That was when, over two years ago, he left his firm, moved to Florida, and opened a studio to practice the art of glass fusing.
   This craft takes patience and care. Smukler starts with varying kinds of glass, sometimes also interweaving metal. He designs from intuition. “When I’ve sketched anything in advance, it becomes overworked intellectually,” he explains. “I try to create an emotional backdrop; either a landscape, air or waterscape, and then I attempt to superimpose an emotional feeling on top of it.” After the piece has been shaped, it is then placed in a slowly heated kiln that reaches up to fifteen hundred degrees. When the work emerges from the kiln, it cools and the glass has formed into beautiful, translucent panels with sharp, geometric shapes and seductive curves that change colors in the light. In many of his pieces, one detects traces of his favorite artist, Kandinsky, who was also a lawyer and an artist.
   Smukler’s artistic endeavors are not an idle hobby. He has exhibited in over twenty galleries across the nation as well as having art in private collections. In addition, he runs his own studio in Boca Raton, where he is able to be fully dedicated to his art in a way he was unable to do as a lawyer. “I practiced law for thirty years. Law is a jealous mistress.” Now, he can give himself fully to the work he loves best.
   Smukler remains an avid Nittany Lion fan and travels to State College every year. He has also bequeathed his private art collection to the Palmer Museum at Penn State. “My four years at Penn State were a tremendous experience. I have a great sense of pride as an alumnus.”
   To see more of Smukler’s work, visit his Web site or e-mail him at rsglassart@aol.com.

Liberal Arts Alumni Receive Multiple Awards

   The College recognized several alumni at its Liberal Arts awards program on March 27. The annual event also honors faculty and graduate students for teaching, research, and advising.
   John Finneran, a 1972 history alumnus, won the first of this year’s Outstanding Liberal Arts Alumni Awards. John Finneran '72 HIST Established in 1998, the award is designed to recognize and reward distinguished alumni for their success and influence as leaders. In addition to achieving significant career success, these alumni must be outstanding role models for current Liberal Arts students.
   Finneran is Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Capital One Financial Corporation, one of the fastest-growing, most profitable financial services companies in the United States. Headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, Capital One is a leader in the direct marketing of credit cards and other financial services. As of January, Capital One had 47.4 million accounts, making it one of the world’s largest consumer franchises and one of the largest providers of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the world.
   Finneran has been a key member of Capital One’s senior executive team since September 1994. He leads the company’s legal department, which is responsible enabling the company’s domestic and international business strategies, as well as for government and shareholder relations. He also leads Capital One’s efforts to ensure a customer focus in all of its business lines and plays an important role in expanding the company’s business internationally.
   Previously, Finneran served in progressively senior legal positions with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, including Acting Deputy General Counsel to the FDIC.
   Finneran is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. He is active in school and community activities, and serves as a member of the National Board of Directors of Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a non-profit organization supporting community development and affordable housing, and he serves as the chairman of his local advisory committee.
   Owen Landon, a 1951 arts and letters graduate, is chairman and CEO of Landon Media Group, a family-owned and operated company established over 100 years ago as the Julius Mathews Special Agency, a regional newspaper representative company.
    After graduating from Penn State—he was captain of the varsity tennis team and business manager of the Daily Collegian—Landon began his media career as a trainee with Mathews in their Philadelphia office. He transferred to Chicago, then New York, and became president in 1962. He subsequently acquired the agency and reorganized it as Landon Associates in 1976 after acquiring several competitors.
   With offices in fifteen U.S. cities, Landon Media Group today is a diverse organization including three national newspaper sales and marketing companies partnering with over 700 daily newspapers to act as their agent to regional and national advertisers. It also includes a national direct marketing company, a college marketing
research company, and a newspaper sales and marketing company for recruitment advertising.
   A Williamsport, PA, native, Mr. Landon is a past Penn State Alumni Council member and was honored with the university’s Distinguished Alumni award in 1982. In 1990, Landon established the Owen Landon, Jr. Endowed Fund in the Humanities.
   The Liberal Arts Alumni Society also awards a Service to Penn State Award annually. Established in 1987, the award recognizes Liberal Arts alumni who have demonstrated significant commitment and dedication to enhancing the objectives of the University and the College. This year’s award recipient is Doug Allen, who graduated in 1973 with a degree in labor studies.
   Allen has been the key volunteer behind Liberal Arts’ most significant alumni relations success at the department level. His passion for Penn State, his professional experience in the labor studies field, and his extensive personal network have facilitated significant, long-term enhancement of the Labor Studies and Industrial Relations department, among other units at Penn State.
   Allen has been Assistant Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association since 1986 and President of National Football League Players Incorporated since 1994. He played linebacker under coach Paterno and was a starter on Penn State’s undefeated 1973 team. He played linebacker for two seasons with the Buffalo Bills before moving on to work for the AFL-CIO.
   Allen helped launch an alumni group in Labor Studies in 1995 with then department head Mark Wardell and served as president of the group until 2001. The labor studies alumni group raises money, helps students get internships and graduates land jobs, and reconnects many dozens of alumni to the department and to each other. During his tenure, the group has hosted six re-connection receptions in places like Philadelphia, Washington, and New York. He now chairs the alumni board’s development committee and has been instrumental in raising funds to support both undergraduate and graduate students. He sponsors paid internships at the NFL Player’s Association for students and participates annually in the department’s career exploration programs.
    Allen also contributes his time to Penn State Athletics. He speaks to football team members about sports agents and their role in professional sports. He also works with Penn State’s NCAA compliance officer, and, through his initiative, the NFL Player’s Association organizes a variety of educational services for student athletes.